USgamer Community Question: Did Nintendo's Switch Presentation Convince You to Buy, Abstain, or Wait?

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Nintendo showed off more of the Switch during this week's worldwide unveiling. Some of us were impressed. Others, less so. Some of us waited up to pre-order the Switch. Others decided to wait and see what the console / handheld hybrid will offer down the line.

What about you? Did the presentation change your mind about the Switch and its prospects?

Jaz Rignall, Editor-at-Large

I think the Switch has some amazing functionality, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of new and innovative experiences games designers will be able to create for the system. However, what's the most important thing to me is the software I can play when the machine is released, and apart from the obvious, nothing on the launch list of titles has jumped out at me as an absolute must-play. 1-2-Switch looks like fun, but seems more like a novelty-game-meets-tech-demo than something that'll keep me at my Switch for hours. There's good buzz building about Snipperclips being an entertaining arcade puzzle game, and as a longtime fan of the Bomberman series, Super Bomberman R is a game I'd probably really enjoy. However, none of these are titles I feel truly compelled to play on March 3rd.

Of course, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild looks phenomenal, and I'd love to be able to get my teeth into that as soon as possible, but considering the price of entry is essentially $360, I just think that's a little too high. By the time the Holiday season rolls around, and there are more games to choose from, like Super Mario Odyssey and Splatoon 2, it'll be easier for me to justify shelling out for a new system. And maybe by that time the Switch will be bundled with a game, which would definitely help sweeten the deal.

So yeah. Put me in the "wait" category.

Mike Williams, Associate Editor

I've pre-ordered a Switch for launch, since I need one for work, but if I were a smarter man, I'd probably wait until after launch to pick one up. The situation with the NES Classic has whipped people up into sort of a frenzy and I'm not necessarily seeing the intense demand for the Switch. Will it sell out? Sure, but most of a launch allotment tends to sell out. The Wii U rocked the numbers at launch, but quickly slowed a few months in, and it finished its run with 13.36 million sold.

I think the Switch is like the Nintendo DS and 3DS before it. This first round is out there to make money for the early adopters and Nintendo faithful. I don't know if that's a plan or hubris on Nintendo's part, but the combination of price and library means it's a rough proposition for any but the staunchest believer. $299 on its own isn't bad, but given what you get versus what you can get elsewhere, it's a hard sell. I think given a price drop, a few games, and perhaps a revision, the Switch may get to greatness one day.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the centerpiece, but the truth is I can pick that up on the Wii U with little issue. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is good, but it's a game I have to pay $60 for to get a title I already own. That means I'm waiting for Summer and Splatoon 2.

It's a wait-and-see proposition right now and the longer I have to think about my pre-order the more likely I'd be to cancel it if I didn't need one for work. And that's not a great starting point.

Kat Bailey, Editor in Chief

If I weren't in the games press, I'd probably waffle a lot on whether or not I want to get the Nintendo Switch. Some of that is that I'm not typically an early adopter: I like for a system to have around 10 games I'd like to own before I buy. But I do have some legitimate concerns about where the Switch is going to end up.

Going into the Switch event, I was hoping to see a few things from Nintendo: a commitment to securing indie development, reasonable outreach to both eastern and western third-party development, and a strong launch portfolio. Outside of confirmation that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be out on March 3, I got pretty much none of those things. Ultimately, the third-parties were tepid, the announced launch was tiny, and the indie support was non-existent (outside of Shovel Knight). Oh, and it's too expensive.

As a result, I'm about 25 percent less excited for the Switch than I was before. Still, I dutifully preordered a Switch and a copy of Zelda shortly after the press conference was done, and I feel reasonably confident that I will my money's worth from it. If nothing else, it will probably have more Pokemon this year. It had better, anyway.

Nadia Oxford, Associate News Editor

I figure most of USgamer's staff will be securing a Switch for work-related purposes (what a hard-knock life we lead), but if I had my druthers, I'd still be pretty hyped to pick up a Switch at launch. That new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is no joke. Nothing about it indicates "This is a game you should wait on," and I sure ain't gonna.

That's not to say the Switch's first few months appear to be smooth sailing, though. At the time of this writing it's Butt O'Clock in the morning and I'm preparing to head off to Nintendo's hands-on Switch event. There are a lot of questions about the Switch that are up in the air, and I expect -- well, I hope -- that some of them will be answered later today.

Circumstances prevent me from filling out this question after those blanks are filled in, so here's the best answer I can cobble from my current position: I always planned to get a Switch at launch and nothing has changed on that front, though I'd be considering my launch day plans very carefully if not for Breath of the Wild. I would still want a Switch before the year's end, however, because Super Mario Odyssey looks like it's fifty flavors of sweet.